Public Sector IT Recruitment Hits Low

06 Jul 2012 by Geoff Newman

Recruitment agencies looking to place IT staff may have to look in increasing amounts to the private sector after it was revealed that public sector IT employment has plummeted. Over the past two years spending in the public sector for new IT projects has slumped, with 95% of new IT jobs being created in private industries.

The new report from ReThink Recruitment collated data for new IT jobs in May and June 2012. It was shown that new positions have not recovered from the post election slump that was noted when the new government came into power. Before the last general election in 2010, the public sector created 30% of the new IT jobs coming onto the market; however, spending cuts have led to plummeting opportunities.

ReThink Recruitment’s director, Michael Bennett, said: “The government’s austerity programme has had a devastating effect on the public sector’s recruitment of IT contractors. Whilst the hiring of IT staff in the private sector is beginning to recover, this is definitely not the case in the public sector. Just a tiny proportion of new jobs are now in public sector roles.” He added that withdrawing major IT projects could create some huge problems in the future, with government offices and departments trying to run services on out of date systems and not having skilled staff to utilise.

For recruiters, the majority of IT placements are now within the private field. With the public sector unlikely to create more vacancies in the immediate future, people must look to private industries for IT vacancies.